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Acting with Hamlet takes a certain skull

DAVID TENNANT has used the skull of a former pianist in
performances of Hamlet.

Andre Tchaikowsky died of cancer in 1982 aged 46 and donated his
body for medical science. But he added the proviso that his skull
"shall be offered by the institution receiving my body to the Royal
Shakespeare Company for use in theatrical performance".

It has since been used only in rehearsals because no actor felt
comfortable enough using it on stage in front of an audience.

David Howells, curator of the company archives, said: "In 1989
the actor Mark Rylance rehearsed with it but he couldn't get past
the fact it wasn't Yorick's, it was Andre Tchaikowsky's."

Now, unbeknown to the paying public, Dr Who actor Tennant
has used the skull in 22 performances of Hamlet in
Stratford-upon-Avon. The director, Greg Doran, explained why he did
not want anyone to know. "I thought it would topple the play and it
would be all about David acting with a real skull," he said.

Polish-born Tchaikowsky was smuggled out of the Warsaw ghetto in
1942 to Lodz, before settling in Paris and later England. He lived
in Oxford for a time and loved going to the theatre in
Stratford-upon-Avon.

Tennant's Hamlet has earned mostly positive reviews.
Writing in The Guardian, theatre critic Michael Billington
said: "Audiences may flock to this production to see the
transmogrification of Dr Who into a wild and witty Hamlet. What
they will discover is a rich realisation of the greatest of poetic
tragedies."